Generally, international trade involves the exchange of capital, goods, and services across international borders or territories. Large and small companies and individuals commonly rely on parcel shippers to transport their goods across international borders or territories for delivery to their desired destination. Parcel shippers are capable of shipping a wide variety of goods efficiently and at a low cost. One of the challenges of shipping internationally is clearing items through customs. Customs authorities and/or agencies are responsible for collecting customs duties and controlling the transportation of the goods in and out of their respective countries. Each country has its own laws and regulations for controlling the importation and exportation of goods into and out of the country. The importation or exportation of certain goods may be restricted or forbidden (e.g., counterfeit or illegal goods) based on the controlling jurisdiction.
Frequently, shippers of these goods are not sure which items are counterfeit and which items are not, therefore, to reduce the risk of importing something illegal, are confined to using channels that are slow and unreliable (e.g., postal channels), which limits their business potential. When shipping parcel commodities through postal channels, the parcels are commonly presented somewhat vaguely to customs, with many package contents declared as “gifts”, “samples” or “electronics”, and often the items in a package do not match the description. Similarly, shippers that are unsure of rules or intellectual property laws for a particular jurisdiction may intentionally disguise product descriptions. Such practices complicate custom's job because customs officials are not able to inspect all the packages that are presented vaguely or improperly. The vague and inaccurate representation of parcels results in a significant amount of counterfeit goods that enter the United States market and other markets each year. Accordingly, customs agencies are concerned about the amount of pirated goods that enter the United States and other markets but struggle with limited resources to enforce importation rules
Another area of concern for customs is the declared value of items. Shippers commonly under-declare shipment values to lower the potential duties charged. Generally, the under-declaration is unnecessary, as there would be no duties on the package at its full value. Customs organizations tend to assess penalties or hold shipments for such activity when discovered. Accordingly, a way is needed to educate shippers on how to present appropriate information to customs, resulting in gaining the trust of customs.